The Pacers have it in hand

Tomorrow, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, the Bucks will play to avoid being mathematically eliminated from the 2024 playoffs. It would be the second season in a row with a first-round bye, something that would seem unthinkable for the 2021 champion and which, of course, is a terrible news about to be confirmed (1-3 for Indiana Pacers) for the team that launched that resounding all-in that was the transfer for Damian Lillard. An electroshock for a team that felt it had lost steam when it left last season, also in the first season but then against the Miami Heat. A year later, the balance of the Lillard operation is disastrous on a sporting level although it worked, not a little, on a strategic level: Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had aired his doubts in the summer with the ambition and sporting direction of the Bucks, felt that he was still being in the right place to try to become champion again and signed a three-year, $186 million extension.

The fact is that when the time has come to really play the season, the team’s mantra during a course filled with low moments (the playoffs will come…), neither Giannis nor Lillard have been on the court. The power forward because of those treacherous muscle injuries that keep you unable to play for days despite always being on the verge of doing so. The point guard due to an Achilles tendon problem that also poses a threat of a very serious injury if he forces himself and things don’t go well. Will they play the fifth tomorrow? It seems difficult for one to do it (it would be Giannis, surely) and practically impossible for both of them to be on the court to defend the last life of a team that lost again in Indiana (126-113) and faces a 3-1 opponent that It has only come back 13 times in the 281 occasions in which it has occurred until this season. And even the data, very unflattering, has a trick: the last two were signed by the Denver Nuggets in the Florida bubble, with all the games on a neutral court. With fans and travel, no one has done it since the Cavs did it in the 2016 Finals against the 73-9 Warriors. In the first round? The last case dates back to 2006, the Suns against the Lakers.

So the Bucks have one life left to achieve something improbable and they will have to try, except for a sudden twist in the script, without Antetokounmpo or Lillard, a couple that has spent the season talking about why things don’t work, a change of coach and aborted playoff restart. There has been nothing, until now, and the only thing that remains is a miracle against a team that, adding the In-Season Tournament, has already beaten seven times (7-2) this season, three in a row to turn that 1- 0 of Lillard’s corkage that seems very far away in a 1-3 that threatens to close tomorrow, if everything continues to go wrong, one of the most disappointing and frustrating seasons in the recent history of the Milwaukee Bucks.

To make matters worse, a team already mortally wounded without its two stars played almost the entire game without Bobby Portis, who was sent off for two technicals in the first quarter. And he saw how Krhis Middleton fought every possible evil (physical problems, foul problems) to finish with 25 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists. The guard tried to do everything on offense and take on top-notch defensive assignments despite the fact that he has a visibly bad ankle and that he spent almost the entire second half with four fouls. He and Brook Lopez (27 points, 9 rebounds), two 2021 champions, tried to keep a team on their feet that tried, led 67-64 at halftime and made the best of it as they could later against the Pacers who, as almost always , they trusted everything to the attack and won with three-pointers.

Rick Carlisle, who is an old dog and has seen it all in the NBA, had warned his team, which is not exactly the most reliable in the universe, that many times it is not easy to play with everything in your favor, that there is something diabolical to take to the track with an advantage in the series and with everything in its favor. And for many minutes, especially in the first half, it seemed that things could get complicated for a team with no other excuse than its own volatility. Twelve triples with fabulous percentages (12/22) maintained the local advantage until halftime, and right after (and at 67-66), three in a row by Tyrese Haliburton opened an already serious advantage (76-66) that reached 19 points . In the end, 22 triples (franchise record in the playoffs (22/43) for a team that distributed 33 assists (and is the first in 40 years to exceed thirty on average in the playoffs) for only 7 losses.

The victory, which ended up being a matter of logic, was signed by Myles Turner: 29 points with a 7/9 in triples for the center, brilliant throughout the tie. Tyrese Haliburton added 24 and 4 assists, increasingly in tune after his bad first game, and Pascal Siakam finished 13+9+7 for the Pacers in which he is doing a brilliant job, in defense and attack, Andrew Nembhard (15 points, 9 assists), who has imprinted in his DNA the toughness that his team often lacks at a collective level.

The Pacers had everything going for them and they took advantage. The 3-1 combined with the injuries to Giannis and Lillard pose a scenario in which not advancing would be a catastrophe and to do so, there is one small step left, a tremendous success: they have not played in the East semifinals since 2014. In their own way, with issues that will have to be resolved in the summer, they are fulfilling their part of the script and finishing off in a very good way a season that is, in any case, one of enormous growth. Now there is one small step left, the last, against a rival who seems mortally wounded but who will try everything on his court, tomorrow. Check out the Bucks, an applicant who, among one thing and another, has spent the entire season without being one.

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